“There is a flame that lights on top of that building every hour on the hour on the hour. If you’re patient, maybe we can see it.” He tells me as he guides my hand from the car.

“Why not?” I thought to myself. This has been one random circumstance after another anyway. So we waited and talked and talked and talked.

And then it happened.

It might not have been that blue flame he talked about but it was something else. Something new and exciting. Something just… perfect for the moment.

This wasn’t how I’d planned for things to happen. This wasn’t what I’d imagined my first official night living in downtown Los Angeles being like.

I’d just met him a few hours ago. He was supposed to show me an apartment. I had no idea this was going to happen. I had no idea this boy I’m going to be staying with was going to be like this. But there we were- making out passionately beneath a starless sky in the night air being cheered on by random passerbys.

Sometimes the best adventures are the ones that you stumble across. Sometimes you find what you were looking for when you’ve stopped looking.

This is a collection of stories about a little girl in a big city far far away from where she grew up. Of highlighted moments encapsulated in my mind’s eye. Of the exciting. Of the mundane. Of the places in between.